Recently, in accordance with development of a genome project, genome nucleotide sequences of various organisms have been identified, thus increasing an interest in bio-microchips and microarrays of the chips. The microarray is extensively used in gene expression profiling, genotyping, detection of mutation and polymorphism such as SNP, protein and peptide analysis, screening of latent drugs, and development and manufacturing of new drugs.
In the microarray used in the aforementioned analysis or detection, a plurality of oligomer probes should be provided on a substrate, and the plurality of oligomer probes are fixed to the substrate to have different sequences for each region. In this case, a functional group layer mediating coupling of the oligomer probes, that is, a self-assembled monolayer (SAM), may be formed on the substrate to fix more stable and integrated oligomer probes. Subsequently, a step of attaching DNA or protein to the functional group layer is performed to manufacture and use the microarray. When the microarray substrate including the self-assembled monolayer that is the functional group layer is produced using the aforementioned method, there is a difficulty in that several process steps are performed, accordingly, there is a limitation in terms of reliability or mass-production properties of the microarray substrate.
Particularly, in a typical technology such as Korean Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-2004-0017904, slide glass is dipped in a solution including a functional group layer material mediating coupling of oligomer probes dissolved in a solvent such as alcohol to form a functional group layer in order to manufacture a microarray substrate. The aforementioned dipping method has a limitation in that in order to form the functional group layer, a coupling reaction is performed on a surface of slide glass to reduce a concentration of the functional group layer material present in the solution. The concentration is not maintained according to a position of a container containing the solution and a time and thus it is very difficult to control the concentration of the functional group layer material in the solution, accordingly, it is not easy to uniformly form the functional group layer on the entire surface of slide glass using the dipping method. Accordingly, there is a limitation in that uniformity and reliability of the microarray substrate are significantly reduced.
(Patent Document 1) Korean Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-2004-0017904